Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, rural America is anxiously awaiting the deliberations taking place regarding the relief for those who experienced 2005 crop failure. Farmers across the country have just completed the most expensive spring planting in the history of U.S. agriculture, and for those carrying the debt from last year due to disaster losses in reaping their crop, it has pushed them to the brink of bankruptcy.

The Senate has committed on a bipartisan basis meaningful disaster assistance, when the House Appropriations Committee voted it down on a party line vote with Republicans opposing. Now in conference committee, we have learned that House Republicans are doing their dead level best to strip this assistance our farmers need so badly out of the legislation.

Farmers of this country need to know if disaster assistance efforts fall short, it was the majority, the House Republicans, that stood in the way and prevented us from getting the disaster assistance they so desperately need.

Mr. Chairman, I very much thank my chairman for yielding.

We are at a time when we have the greatest trade imbalance that we have ever had in the history of our country, and the effect of this amendment would be to significantly encroach upon a sugar program that has kept domestic sugar production part of the agricultural production in this country.

It is very much on the bubble. Throw open the doors, there are countries around the world heavily subsidizing their domestic product, providing a global dump price well below fair cost to production, meaning the end of U.S.

production, reliance entirely upon imported sugar.

Now, that has a consequence that goes well beyond trade imbalance because, at that point in time, the pricing of our groceries, turning in part upon the sugar ingredient found in so many of our processed foods, is like the oil we import and burn, out of our control. Volatile pricing of global sugar, volatile pricing of groceries.

What we have with the sugar program is fair pricing, a stable food market, a program that needs to continue.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, it has only been a few hours since we resolved the vote on the budget. To the disappointment of many of us, the budget was passed, and the fifth debt limit increase, the second since March of this year alone, has now been authorized.

But there are other features in this budget passed last night that many of us found objectionable, including those steep, steep cuts in nondefense discretionary spending in order to pay for those tax cuts disproportionately benefiting the wealthiest people in this country. Those who need the help the least get the most help in terms of huge tax cuts, and vital programs to this country get savaged under the spending cuts moved forward.

I want to elaborate on the earlier debate carried by our ranking member, Dave Obey, in the Appropriations Committee, because in this rule there is language which incorporates the spending limits of the House-passed budget last night. I want to make this point very clear, because there were 12 Members of the majority that voted against that budget. There was another group that got nonbinding language saying some of the money may somehow, somewhere, possibly be put back. Well, now we know that nonbinding language means nothing at all. The rule carries forward enforcement of these cuts.

And so if you are a moderate Republican or a member of the minority that believes going down this path is unwise and sells out priorities of the American people, then you should not vote for this rule today. Anyone voting against that budget with concerns about these devastating cuts in nondefense discretionary spending should vote against this rule. It imposes the cuts on the appropriations process.

Mr. Speaker, the preceding 1 minute could not have been more false. Today's budget raises the debt limit again, today's budget will add deficits in each of the years of its operation, today's budget will bring the national debt to $9.6 trillion, and to hear words on the floor of this House about this being a budget of fiscal discipline, this being a budget responding to the concerns of taxpayers worried about red ink, that is pure unadulterated hooey.

This budget is a fiscal catastrophe. It raises the debt limit in May, just after we raised the debt limit in March.

Anyone thinking that the Nation's finances have spun completely under control under the consolidated power of this administration and this Republican Congress needs only to look at this budget and only needs to look at the fact that they are back at the bank one more time, raising the debt limit, to understand the deep trouble that we are in.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, today's time line reveals everything about the programs and the politics of the majority running this Congress. This afternoon they gathered at the White House. The President signed at a time of staggering deficits yet another tax cut skewed to help the most affluent while doing little to help those who needed help.

This evening in the middle of this debate, they are going to recess so they can go to a big fund-raising party and reap the special interest contributions of those who have benefited so much from their cash-and-carry government. And after that, they are going to come back to the floor of this House and vote to raise the national debt as part of this budget. That is right, raise the national debt as part of this budget.

I haven't heard Mr. Putnam say anything about the language in here that raises the national debt $653 billion. It was buried on the bottom of page 121 of their budget.

It is a mere 2 months since they last raised it. They raised the national debt in March, they pass the tax cut, they have a fund-raiser, and they come back to the floor of the House to raise the national debt again. In fact, it is the fifth time under this President that they have raised the national debt: June 2002, May 2003, November 2004, March 2006, May 2006. And do you know what? They are planning to raise it again once the election is over.

If there is any further clearer evidence that we have a totally irresponsible majority running this country into a fiscal ditch, that is requiring unending borrowing which will saddle

our children with a legacy of debt, I do not know what could more perfectly illustrate it than the events unfolding today.

Sign a tax cut, have a fund-raiser, raise the national debt again: That is the fiscal record of this majority. That is why this budget must be defeated.

Mr. Speaker, the majority Members have said this is all about jobs. No, it's not. It's all about debt.

Let me tell you something that you are not going to hear from a single proponent for this tax cut. The passage of it is going to necessitate raising the borrowing limit for our country yet another time because we are spiraling into further red ink under their reckless fiscal policy.

Look at the record. June 2002, they raised the debt. May 2003, they raised the debt. November 2004, they raised the debt. March of this year, they raised the debt. And do you know what we have now discovered? In their budget documents that will be presented on this floor this week or next, they are going to raise the debt again. They just raised it in March, now they are going to raise it again.

The record of this President will be that 42 Presidents left this country with a debt of $5.6 trillion, and under the watch of President George W. Bush, that debt will double.

This could not be happening at a worse time. Seventy-eight million Americans are going to retire next decade. The draw on Social Security and Medicare will begin. And yet we are saddling those that will follow in our country with this staggering debt even while we have the entitlement obligations to meet.

This feeding frenzy of more tax cuts, deeper fiscal imbalance, more borrowing, yet another borrowing, has got to stop. We are leaving our children with a legacy of debt they will never get out of.

Do you know any family whose approach to retirement is to blow everything they have got, expecting fully that the children are going to take care of their debts, pay their medical bills, give them income to live on in retirement? Of course not. Families take care of their children. This Congress is selling our children short by saddling them with unending debt.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to oppose this motion to instruct. I certainly think there is a good intention behind it. Clearly, all of us have been concerned when we have had some of these conversions from a traditional pension plan to a hybrid plan, and older workers have suddenly found that they have been terribly disadvantaged in the conversion, seen their pension benefits and expected pension benefits reduced significantly.

But here is why I don't like this motion. It fails to really address this issue in the context of what is in the marketplace. You have got defined benefit pensions that pay an annuity for as long as the employer lives. I think we should work together to make sure defined benefit pensions continue in the marketplace to the extent possible.

To the extent we don't have a defined benefit pension, alternative employee benefits relative to retirement include a 401(k) plan, which is essentially a savings account, and then there is something in between, a hybrid plan that does capture the annuitized feature of the pension, calculated in a different way than the traditional pension calculation.

Now, it is important that we have best practices and fair treatment in the conversion of a pension to a hybrid plan. But guess what? If we overly regulate the conversion from the pension to the hybrid plan, the employer will simply say, okay, we will go from the pension to the defined contribution plan. We are not going to make this intervening stop in the hybrid option, the cash balance option. We are just going to either scrap the benefit altogether or go right to the defined contribution plan.

I am convinced that that is not in the interest of workers, and that is why I am convinced that the Senate approach, which is advanced by this motion to recommit, actually does not help the very workers that we care about and we intend to help.

There is no question about the sincerity of the language by the proponents of this motion. They care about protecting older workers. It is just that, technically, what they have put before this body in a motion to recommit does not do that. I believe it actually may disadvantage the very people they hope to help by instead of moving to cash balance hybrid plans that at least preserve some features of the pension, they will just scrap that option altogether. I don't see anybody winning under that proposal. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to say that I will be voting against H.R. 609. In this age of rising global competitiveness, graduating from college has never been more important for America's students. However, as

the importance of obtaining higher education is rising, so is college tuition and the amount of debt that students must borrow to earn a college degree. Since 2002, the cost of college has increased over 40 percent, with North Dakota's largest schools increasing their tuition by double digits in the past two academic years. In addition, last year 9.7 million students received federal education loans, with the typical student borrowing $15,500 to finance a bachelor's degree.

In this climate, the bill before the House today does not adequately address the problem of college accessibility. First, the bill does not reverse the changes made in the budget reconciliation bill passed earlier this year, which included the largest cuts to the student aid program ever. The reconciliation bill increased interest rates for new loans to students and parents and imposed new consolidation fees on borrowers, making the repayment of loans more difficult. Second, although H.R. 609 does include some improvements to aid programs, these changes are not adequate to address the problems outlined above. For example, although H.R. 609 increases the maximum Pell grant award, the award was only increased $200--not enough to meet the increasing costs of college tuition. Unfortunately, H.R. 609 does not do enough for students and parents facing college costs and I am hopeful that this bill can be improved as it progresses through the legislative process.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I have some information that the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania will be very interested in hearing. The capital gains rate, the dividend tax rate that she effuses about, well, they are secure in present law for 2006, for 2007, for 2008. And so the issue before the body is not at all whether this relief will continue as clearly implied. I can only believe that the speech she just gave is based on a profound misunderstanding of what we are talking about relative to these rates.

These rates are in present law through 2008 so no one is talking about these rates going away. What we are talking about is priorities. First things first. And first is we have got to do something about this alternative minimum tax. There will be people meeting their accountants this afternoon all across the country with April 15 coming closer, and they are going to have worked through their entire schedule, their deductions, their itemizations, and their accountant is going to tell them none of this matters because you fell under the alternative minimum tax. You are going to owe the Federal Government a higher income tax bill than you ever imagined. And as bad as this is this year, it is going to be worse next year and the year after that.

So in sharp contrast to this capital gains business that is not even before us until 2009, these alternative minimum tax rates are hitting now, and they are hitting at ever lower ranks of income coming fully into the middle class, and that is why on a first-needs-first basis we need to put this priority to the floor, and that is exactly what our motion does.

Now, our motion does something else. It says that we ought to take the savings from taking this fix they put in the outyears for 2009 and 2010 and put that to reducing the deficit now.

This afternoon is a very interesting litany of happy talk from the other side about this great economy, and it reminds me of that great commercial. This fellow, he is so self-content. He says, I have got a great car. I have got a great house. And then in a sober moment, he looks at the camera, and he says, I am in debt to my eyeballs. That is exactly the state of this country.

This is the same crowd that is presiding over the deepest deficit in the history of the country, and that is saying something because it was also record in 2003, 2004 and 2005. This is the crowd that passed the bill that increased the debt so that we can now borrow close to $9 trillion. These economy happy times they are talking about, they are paid for fair and square all right. They are paid for on debt that we are passing on to our children.

It is wrong, and I urge your support of the motion to instruct.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Talk, talk, talk. The time for talking is over. Last week I had the opportunity to stand with people whose children have been taken from them, children who were victims of horrific crimes. So that their children not die in vain, these wonderful people, including Linda Walker, who is the mother of Drew Sjodin who lost her life in North Dakota, have focused their energies on trying to help keep other children safe and to keep them safe by giving families the information about dangerous, high-risk sexual predators who are living in their communities.

It is time we move this bill forward so that it might be conferenced with action the Senate would take on similar legislation. I am not happy with the Senate's handling of this proposal, not one bit, but I am not going to let some quest for perfection delay our efforts to make our families safer any longer. These families want action now, and this Congress should give it to them. Vote for this bill.

Mr. Speaker, pensions are being frozen every day. Workers are having their retirement benefits reduced, yet the administration supports proposals which will dramatically accelerate the freezing of pensions.

When I asked the Department of Labor how many pensions will be frozen as a result of their proposals, they could not answer. They said they had not even modeled or considered the implication.

Well, the CFOs of the Nation have considered it, and a gathering of them have said these proposals will have long-term consequences for current and future workers, with the potential to damage the retirement security of millions of Americans. Indeed this same group estimates 60 percent of existing pension plans may be frozen. That is what this looks like on a chart: 29,700 pension plans in force, 17,800 of them to be frozen under the 60 percent proposal. The administration has not considered it.

That is why the motion to recommit is so important. We say that fully funded pension plans should not face dramatically severe additional funding requirements, they are already fully funded. Why would you want to punish employers who have funded pension plans? One very clear reason: to end pensions. And that is really what is at stake. They want to move from a defined benefit pension guarantee to defined contribution 401(k)s. It is as simple as that.

We should resist that. Pensions ensure that the risk of participating is universal. The workers participate. They ensure that the risk of investing is handled collectively. They ensure that you are not going to outlive your assets in retirement. That is what pensions provide. That is why we should be able to agree on a bipartisan basis to continue these pensions.

But yet just last week at the Nation's Savers Summit, I heard a committee chairman say he prefers the 401(k) to pensions. Why, he was asked? Because it is part of the ownership society.

Oh, we get it. You own your risk. You own your risk of investing appropriately. And you own the risk that you are not going to outlive the assets as you live on to retirement years.

We ought to be doing everything we can to keep workers' pensions. We all ought to feel some failure when we read, like today's headlines, GM to cut retirement costs, following, as the article notes, not just troubled companies, but healthy as well. Verizon, IBM, Motorola, the trend continues and will be

accelerated dramatically by this bill which seeks to push all of the Nation's pension plans into termination in favor of 401(k)s.

Pass this motion to recommit.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and thank him and all of my colleagues, Democratic colleagues, on the House Budget Committee.

I have previously served on the House Budget Committee and the task before you points out the absolute lunacy of the Republican budget plan. This is extremely important. Thank you for the time you are spending on it today.

Earlier this morning I was at an event where we heard from several Republican Congressmen and the Vice President of the United States. They were sharing the same talking points. Because even the phrasing was identical in speech after speech. And it was something like this: The economy is going great. Growth is strong. Unemployment is down. We deserve a lot of credit.

What they did not tell you, what they did not tell the crowd this morning, made no mention of it at all, is that this crowd is funding the government on borrowed money.

The good times we are seeing today are very much like someone that might be living down the street, living high and mighty, driving nice cars, wearing fancy suits and doing it all on borrowed money.

There is a wonderful television commercial that has a very self- contented man. He says, I have got a nice family. I have got a nice house. I have got a nice car. And then he looks at the camera and says, And I am in debt up to my eyes. Because what they are doing is artificially creating today the appearance of prosperity while they mask the depth of debt they are pushing our country into. That is what is so important on this chart.

We have had the most significant financial swing in the history of our country going from projection of surpluses as this crowd took over to the deepest deficit we have ever had in the history of the country. Record deficit in 2003. Record deficit in 2004. Record deficit in 2005. And this year the biggest kahuna of them all, the deepest deficit ever, which is why they have brought this case in the national debt. It seems like this crowd and their wonderful economy have borrowed so much money the Nation has maxed out its credit card limit. They are at the edge of what we have authorized them to borrow.

Now, we have already increased this debt limit by votes of Congress on three different occasions under this President. I feel like the loan officer as a Member of Congress. They keep coming back for more and more and more. And now even while they proclaim how wonderful things are, they are presiding over the deepest deficit in the history of the country and an increase in the national debt limit authority down to $3.3 trillion of debt.

This is going exactly the opposite of the values of the families I represent. Household after household in North Dakota and across the country, you have got moms and dads at the kitchen table working hard to make ends meet and sharing a conviction that, no matter what, things are going to be better for their children; no matter what, they are going to make sure that their children have more opportunity.

Do you know what? A recent survey shows that more than half of the people in this country believe that it is going to be worse for our children than we ourselves have had it. Now, I ask you, why should Congress run this ``live for today economy,'' racking up debt for our children, doing exactly the opposite, living for today, reducing the prospects for tomorrow for our kids when individually the families of America would do anything to leave things better for their children than they themselves had it? In my opinion, that is the heart of this budget debate.

Are we going to pay our way? Are we going to take the stand now to leave things better for our kids? Well, you sure would not have known from this morning. They are crowing about the happy economy and not saying one word about pushing our Nation into the

deepest debt it has ever been in, leaving our children to clean up this mess. I believe they should be ashamed of themselves.

As I prepare to yield back, I again want to express my appreciation for the efforts of the House Democrats on that Budget Committee fighting this fight and getting the word out. We should not fund today's good times based on tomorrow's debt that our kids are going to have to take care of. We ought to pay our own way, and I intend to work with Republicans and Democrats to get us back to that point. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to recognize the remarkable achievement and leadership of a great North Dakotan, a remarkable business CEO and a wonderful woman--Terry R. Jorde. Today on the occasion of Terry Jorde's election as chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America, ICBA, we celebrate her service and success. Firsts for Jorde are commonplace: She is the first North Dakotan and the first woman so honored.

Terry Jorde is president and CEO of Country Bank USA, a locally owned community bank in Cando, ND. Her career embodies the spirit of Cando--a town literally named for the ``Can Do'' spirit of the town's founders.

Terry Jorde started her banking career at age 21 as a teller and bookkeeper, and in 11 years she advanced to election as president and CEO of the bank. Jorde successfully led the bank through the agricultural crisis in the early 1990's, achieving strong growth in profitability and diversifying the bank's geographic and revenue base.

ICBA's election of Terry Jorde as the organization's chairman comes in recognition of her service to ICBA members. Independent Community Bankers of America is dedicated to enhancing services and values of the Nation's community bankers for the benefit of their customers. Locally owned community banks are the bankers for municipalities and school districts. Community bankers generally know personally many small business owners and establish lending relationships with these individuals and their businesses. These small businesses, in turn, provide the majority of new jobs in our economy.

Like other community bankers around the Nation, Terry Jorde provides tremendous leadership in her communities of Cando and Devils Lake, which is critical to economic development and community revitalization. In any given week, she might spend 6 hours in a hospital board meeting, 4 hours in an economic development corporation meeting, and another 4 hours working with other local community bankers to develop a financial incentive package for a potential new business in Cando. She knows that community service is an important and cost-effective way to invest her time. The vitality of Country Bank depends on the economic success and vitality of the local communities of Cando and Devils Lake.

Jorde has taken that service mission to the national and State levels. She has been an important voice for rural America calling for a strategic vision that brings together a broad rural coalition of various private sector entities, government and educational institutions to focus on the many challenges facing our rural communities. She has testified before congressional committees and had the privilege of being the only active banker to sit on the FDIC's Advisory Committee on Banking Policy. Terry is past president of the Independent Community Banks of North Dakota and a past member of the Federal Reserve Board Consumer Advisory Council. She also served on the board of the North Dakota Department of Financial Institutions.

With ICBA, Jorde has served on the Executive Committee as treasurer and as chairman of ICBA's Services Network, the holding company that oversees the trade association's six for-profit subsidiaries. She has also been chairman of ICBA's Securities Corp. and ICBA's Agriculture- Rural America Committee.

Terry Jorde is a business development leader, serving on the board of the Towner County Economic Development Corp., the Towner County Medical Center, the Cando Community Foundation, and the North Dakota Development Fund. She is also currently a member of Fannie Mae's National Advisory Council.

Terry Jorde holds a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. She and her husband also farm 1,200 acres of potatoes, and they are the parents of three children.

North Dakota is very proud that her outstanding leadership skills and banking expertise are being recognized with this important national association position.

Mr. Speaker, the distinguished chairman arguing the other side has voted to raise the debt limit three times. You know, all of this new revenue is coming in. You have got to wonder how come we have to keep borrowing more because of our deficit and national debt getting deeper and deeper and deeper.

With this motion we say we ought to address first things first. What is the threat that American taxpayers will pay higher taxes in 2006 and 2007?

Well, millions will pay higher income taxes through application of the alternative minimum tax in 2006 and 2007. Under existing law, no one, not one American will pay a higher capital gains rate or higher corporate dividends rate than they do now. That is established in present law. So if we have got a problem with the alternative minimum tax and we do not have a problem with the capital gains and corporate dividends tax, it seems to me you ought to address the 2006 and 2007 problem. And it is a big problem. In 2005, 1.1 percent of taxpayers in the 75,000 to $100,000 income range paid alternative minimum tax. In 2006 it will be 30 percent. 30 percent will pay a higher income tax in that bracket. Only 7 percent in the 100,000 and up bracket got hit with the AMT last year. It will be two-thirds in 2006. Do not increase income taxes through AMT. Fix it.

And so this resolution that they are supporting, the motion to recommit that they are opposing, it makes no sense. It places all the emphasis on 2008 and 2009. Guess what, Chairman Camp? We can do that later. Let us deal with the problem that is right before us, the alternative minimum tax income tax increase that faces millions of our households.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to say that although I will be voting for H.R. 2863, I would like to express my disappointment about several of the provisions in the Act. These extraneous provisions should not have been included in this important bill that is helping to fund and support our troops.

First, I am concerned about the inclusion of aid for students displaced by Hurricane Katrina both procedurally and substantively. While I believe that schools serving displaced students must be reimbursed for educational expenses associated with these students as soon as possible, I am concerned that the system in this bill will create a continuing voucher system, which will not be in the best interest for teachers, students, or parents. I am not satisfied that this program will provide the best relief for students and it is my hope that the program will only be utilized in this emergency time and will sunset as provided next August.

I am also concerned about the 1 percent across the board cut contained in the bill. This cut will reduce defense spending by $4 billion. These cuts will affect funding of important homeland security programs, such as the Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, education programs including No Child Left Behind, and FBI funding, including a reduction of new hires for the counterintelligence/counterterrorism department.

I am disappointed in both of the above provisions, which I feel should have been considered separately. For this reason, I voted against the rule that allowed these provisions to be permitted for consideration in the Defense Appropriations bill.